California’s coast has been an inspiration for visual artists of most media for generations now. Each day provides a fresh view of the Pacific churning against the beaches and eroding cliffs or hills, ending with sunsets bursting with deep and resonant hues.
The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is the first museum to house a traveling exhibit by woodblock artist Tom Killion titled California’s Wild Edge: The Coast in Prints, Poetry, and History, which shares the title of Killion’s new book. The exhibit includes the originals created for the book, which depict many iconic spots on the California coast, paired with the poetry of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Synder.
The show is already up and has received much praise from visitors to the Wildling Museum, explained Assistant Director Katie Pearson.
“We’ve already got requests to purchase these pieces,” she said. “We’ve got people coming from where he’s depicting, travelers visiting the museum, and they say, ‘Oh, I love that point!’”
Woodblock printing is quite an aged form of art, dating back to the Edo period of Japan. Killion is an expert in this style, focusing on landscapes created by a method of adding multicolored layers on one print, which is finished with a black and white stamping from the woodblock.
Before any of that even happens though, the laborious task of carving each tiny detail of the landscape is necessary first. A YouTube video featuring a Cal Poly SLO lecture in the Kennedy Library with Killion (embedded with this story at santamariasun.com) reveals the many steps and tools involved in the process, which results in a stunningly colorful and detailed image.
“To get a finished product, it’s hours and hours of hand work, it’s incredibly intricate and absolutely amazing,” Pearson said. “I think of the detail of how each one is created, and it just makes them very special.”
When the show was initially hung, Pearson explained, there was still a bit of room left in the Wildling’s main showing area, so the exhibit was expanded to include a few pieces from the museum’s permanent collection. Executive Director Stacey Otte-Demangate and Pearson selected a number of woodblock prints to show with Killion’s in an area somewhat divided but still a part of the main gallery.
The addition includes selections from Everett Ruess, a young adventurer who went missing in 1934 who would mail his mother black and white woodblock prints of the places he explored. Also included are a number of colorful woodblock prints by the Wildling Museum’s founder and Executive Director Emeritus Patti Jacquemain, who has focused on wildlife with art and advocacy for years.
“There’s something about the tactileness of the wood and just being able to carve it, to feel it,” Jacquemain said. “And when you carve everything, it’s backwards, so you have to remember that.”
The woodblocks by Jacquemain include local wildlife, such as a California grizzly bear, as well as local landscapes.
Residing in Santa Barbara, Jacquemain has lived in the area for decades, using her talents as an artist to depict the wildlife and landscape she loves at Mission Creek Studios. She’s also involved in other nonprofit efforts in addition to the Wildling Museum designed to preserve, protect, and foster awareness about the wilderness.
“I try to explain how important our wild creatures and plants are, even today when there aren’t so many of them,” she said. “When I started the museum it was dedicated to the wilderness, but I also then focused more on my personal artwork and myself to reflect and focus on wildlife.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne wants to start whittling. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
TACTILE: Tom Killion explains his process when creating his woodblock prints at the opening celebration for Cal Poly Robert E. Kennedy Library’s Spring 2012 exhibit, Pressing Forward: The Book Club of California at 100.
VIA CAL POLY SAN LUIS OBISPO’S YOUTUBE.COM CHANNEL.
This article appears in Mar 24-31, 2016.